


1600

by swaps55



Series: Mass Effect: Chronica [3]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swaps55/pseuds/swaps55
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Joker, doctors are a dime a dozen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1600

The first time Joker winds up in Dr. Chakwas’ sickbay, it’s because of a broken toe. He’s put off seeing her for as long as he can, but the Normandy’s goddamned stairs finally get the better of him. Addison Chase finds him halfway between decks with one white-knuckled hand on the railing and a runaway crutch standing on end near the bottom of the steps. A red-hot blush creeps up his neck as she helps him the rest of the way down, escorting him to the medbay without a word.

To Joker, doctors are a dime a dozen. Within minutes he usually knows everything he needs to about them. He’s either a science project or an inconvenient problem, with little middle ground between the two. He’s not sure yet what side of the scale she’s going to fall on, but he also doesn’t care.

Dr. Chakwas looks too perfect, too sterile, her accent too _British._ She holds her slender arms across her chest, chalk-white hair tucked neatly behind her ear. She’s more of an asari matriarch than most asari matriarchs. Joker doubts she’s ever heard of dirt, and certainly wouldn’t know what to do with it if she found some.

The subtle age lines of her otherwise smooth complexion deepen with mild reproach. “Why in the devil did you wait this long to see me?”

“I was waiting for the inevitable harassment,” he replies.

“I don’t enjoy harassing uncooperative patients.” She uncrosses her arms and digs through a supply cabinet for an imaging scanner. “You can’t help people who won’t help themselves, so I’ll save my efforts for those who don’t actively try and sabotage their health.” 

Joker raises an eyebrow, trying to ignore the throbbing in his toe. At the very least, this is not how his first conversations with a new doctor usually go. “And how do you know I’m uncooperative?”

Gently she cups his heel with her hand and raises his foot, sliding off his boot and running the scanner across his toes. “I have read your file, Mr. Moreau. You’ve left a litany of disgruntled physicians in your wake.  In fact, Captain Anderson personally warned me you’d be a chore.”

“And I thought I’d won him over with my wit and charm.”

The skin at the corner of her eyes pinches in concentration as she views the scan results. “Two fractures in the second and third distal phalanges. You’re lucky they’re not clean breaks.”

“Once you’ve snapped a couple of tibias a few toes don’t seem like a big deal.” 

She straightens and reaches for the dreaded bone knitter, eliciting a sigh from her patient.

“This is why I put it off,” he grumbles.

“I am constantly impressed by the lengths people will go to and the pain they will endure to avoid the short-lived discomfort of a bone knitter,” she says, unfolding the machine and fishing around in a drawer for an extension cable. Once it’s powered up she tugs it to his bedside and programs a cycle.

“Have you been taking your bisphosphonates?” she asks.

“With a giant glass of milk.”

Her lips curve in the slightest of smiles. He doesn’t think a single one of his long term physicians was ever amused by his sarcasm.

The bone knitter kicks on with a high pitched whine, the familiar sting making him flinch. “I hate that damn thing,” he mutters.

“So does Shepard.”

When the procedure finishes she hands him his boot and sets his crutches against the bed. “You’re free to go,” she says.

His head tilts in confusion. No mind numbing history? No repetition of the facts he’s known practically since birth? No lecture about responsibility and disease management?

She raises a slender eyebrow. “Is there something more you need?”

“This is…usually the part where my doctor scolds me for being cavalier about my illness.”

Her emerald eyes glint with amusement. “Who knows better the severity of your condition than yourself? Mr. Moreau, this ship is on a high risk mission that will inevitably result in casualties. My responsibility to them is no different than yours. We look after them. You fly them out of danger. I do my best to keep them on their feet and fighting. You aren’t going to endanger their lives by neglecting your own, are you?”

Joker shifts uncomfortably on the bed, listening to his bones creak. “Um. No. You’re right.”

“Very well then,” she says. “Off with you.”

It’s Joker’s MO to hate doctors. But maybe he’ll give this one a shot.

Just one.

~

She’s good a small talk. Not belittling, like the doc on the _Inchon_. She doesn’t ask questions and then tune out the answers. Sometimes she actually stops what she’s doing to listen. Seems genuinely interested in his answers. He finds himself telling her about his parents, about Hilary, about how he’s about to miss her twelfth birthday. She asks him about moving around a lot as a kid, at first, he thinks, because she’s curious how he managed the Vrolik’s syndrome while constantly being exposed to new surroundings.

But later he thinks it’s because she honestly wanted to know.

He starts coming by the medbay for regular workups, sixteen hundred hours twice a week, before hitting up the mess for dinner. She starts clearing her schedule for their unspoken appointments. And he is never late.

~

“Have you ever tried hydrotherapy, Mr. Moreau?”

“You can call me Joker like everyone else, you know.”

She tilts her head, brow furrowing slightly as she calibrates her equipment. “I’ve never been terribly fond of nicknames.”

“Fine. Call me Jeff. Calling me mister makes me feel too professional. And old.”

From the look on her face he guesses she’ll do nothing of the sort. Her damn British propriety is unflappable.

“Hydrotherapy?” she repeats politely.

“On Arcturus,” Joker replies, dutifully offering his arm for inspection.  She’s taken to running weekly bone density scans. She’s been tinkering with his bisphosphonate regimen, and wants to know if it’s having any remarkable effect.

She squints at the scanner, recalibrates, takes another pass. “Did it help at all?”

“Maybe. Hell, I don’t know. But not that it matters all that much. Not a lot of room for a pool on a frigate.”

“I daresay you’re right. But I’m more interested in its efficacy than the practicality.”

“What for?” he asks.

“Professional curiosity,” she replies.

That prickles him a little. Professional curiosity never ends well, in his experience.

When the scan is finished he reaches for his crutches, swearing a little when he knocks one over. Dr. Chakwas stoops to pick it up, handing it over without comment.

He accepts it warily. “You know you can’t fix me, right Doc?”

“I wasn’t aware you were broken.”

He sighs, gingerly easing off the bed and trusting his weight to the crutches. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m afraid I don’t. Off you go…Mr. Moreau.”

He thinks about skipping his next “appointment.”

He doesn’t.

~

Shepard gives them a night off in Port Hanshan. The food in the hotel is too fancy for his tastes – too many items on the menu that don’t give him the slightest hint what the entrée actually is – but when Alenko shows up with a deck of cards he thinks the night might be saved.

Adams and Pressly take it upon themselves to teach Garrus and Tali how to play poker, while Joker tries to outbluff the lieutenant and fails.

Joker sees her first. Her silver hair is swept back into a clip and she’s wearing a dress – not just a dress but a _dress_ – instead of her medical uniform. It’s emerald green to match her eyes and shimmers a little when she walks, and Joker’s not ashamed to gape.

“If you’ll excuse me, everyone,” Adams says, getting to his feet with a broad grin. “Karin and I have plans.”

The smile on her face when he takes her by the arm transforms her into an entirely different person.

“I didn’t realize they were close,” Pressly comments, flipping through the cards Alenko has dealt.

Joker stares at his hand, a three of clubs, nine of spades and queen of diamonds. All of the things she’s learned about him over the past few weeks, and tonight he realizes he hadn't even known her first name.

~

He tries to notice more. Ask her about herself. Learns she’s been on ships her entire professional life, tried her hand at a post on Arcturus and didn’t like it. Not the challenge, she was quick to add. She liked the challenge. But she missed the action. There was something special about treating soldiers. Whatever that meant.

He wonders if she felt the same way after wrestling a naked krogan so she could treat him for rachni burns.

Sometimes when he comes to the medbay it smells like lavender and chamomile instead of antiseptic, and he figures out that she occasionally enjoys a cup of tea from a personal stash she keeps in a silver tin on her desk.

When she’s digging for something in her office he sneaks a peek at the label on the tin and makes a note on his omnitool. That’s when he notices a paper on her desk about osteografting. By the time she returns he’s seated on the bed, moody and silent. When she asks him what’s wrong he makes a snide comment about how lavender gives him a headache.

He’s spent his whole life wishing for cures that don’t exist, holding onto a fool’s hope just like his parents. Constantly schlepping from one doctor to another, just to be fed line after line about risks and no guarantees that always end in disappointment, only reinforced the belief that he was faulty, a genetic abnormality. Something Darwin would have laughed at.

The nice thing about Dr. Chakwas is that she _doesn’t_ treat him like a science experiment.  

Well. Wouldn’t be the first time he was wrong.

~

Sometimes he really hates that Vrolik’s means he can’t bust angrily through a door without losing his balance or breaking a bone. Tottering on crutches just doesn’t have the same effect. He tries to make up for it by yelling that much louder.

“When were you planning to tell me about this?” he demands, waving a datapad. She’s not the only one who can do research.

“About what?” she asks, with narrowed eyes. She’s seated at her terminal with her usual cup of tea, but this time he doesn’t smell lavender.

“Experimental bone weave.”

When she looks surprised he rolls his eyes. “The data packs came in from the comm buoy when I was at the helm. You’ve been chatting with Mars Naval about an experimental bone weave and whether or not I’m a candidate. Without bothering to ask _me_ if I’m a candidate.”

She sighs and sets down her cup of tea. Some of it sloshes over the side of the mug, eliciting a noise of dismay from her throat as she fumbles for a napkin. “There’s nothing to ask about,” she explains. “Not yet. I’m simply exploring new treatment trends. Trying to see if there are viable options you haven’t pursued.”

“I _have_ explored surgery. The Alliance rejected me four times. My comfort and well-being isn’t worth that many credits.”

She gives him a dour look as she takes a tentative sip of her tea, nose wrinkling in distaste at the flavor. “Nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense. It’s _math_.”

“This procedure is different from the ones you’ve applied for in the past.”

That stops him cold. “Wait. Just how much of my files do you have access to?”

She smiles demurely. “I’m your primary physician, Mr. Moreau. I can access whatever I need to in order to assure your standard of care is being met.”

“My standard of _care_?” he asks, neck hot as his anger catches a whiff of oxygen and ignites. “You call rooting around through all my personal history _standard of care?_ What am I, some kind of case study? Cure the cripple and then march me around some dinner party so you can have your name plastered across some big medical journal?”

Her eyes are wide with shock. A quiver runs through the hand holding the cup. “Jeff, I—”

“Forget it. Just forget it. It doesn’t work. It _never_ works.” He backs up into one of the chairs and sits down with a wince. His joints ache. His bones ache. Everything fucking aches, it always _does_ and he hates the constant reminder that without a pilot’s chair he’s essentially nothing.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you,” she says quietly. “I didn’t want to get your hopes up until I had something worth getting them up _for.”_

When he glares at his lap she reaches out and places a hand over his. He flinches at the touch.

“Jeff, I would never exploit your condition for professional gain. You are my patient. My responsibility to you is the same as it is to Shepard. Alenko. Garrus. Everyone on this ship. I have a lot of friends in the Alliance. Some with a surprising amount of pull. I wanted to see if I could move a few chess pieces. I apologize.”

He pushes back to his feet. Mumbles something. Leaves without letting her run her tests.

~

A few days later he talks to the requisitions officer. Leaves a tin of lavender chamomile tea on her desk.

When he shows up at his usual time she’s surprised. But acts as though nothing has happened.

The medbay smells like lavender again.  

~

His usual 1600 timeslot happens to fall on the day they leave Virmire. It’s the only time he’s ever late.

He almost doesn’t go. Does, because the entire ship feels like a tomb and he’s about to scream.

When he enters the medbay she’s sitting in the little office at the back Liara likes to use. The door is open, but she doesn’t even hear him until he’s gimped his way over.

“Mr. Moreau,” she says, wiping her eye. “I’m so sorry, I’ve forgotten our appointment.”

He catches a glimpse of the datapad on her desk. It’s a death certificate.

This time he’s the one who puts a hand over hers. His legs tremble with the effort of balancing on one crutch, but he doesn’t move until she’s done crying.

~

It’s not until weeks after Sovereign goes down in flames that the experimental bone weave comes up again. She’s spent most of the aftermath on the Citadel, providing an extra set of hands to a severely depleted medical staff trying to handle triage in the Wards.

He takes back anything he ever thought about her being too good for dirt. She’d done more meatball surgery in the past couple of weeks than she’s probably done in her entire career. You can’t wash that much blood out of a uniform.

But once Shepard returns to his feet and the fallout from the attack begins to recede, the _Normandy_ is back on patrol and his biweekly appointments resume.

Four weeks after the attack she scrutinizes him carefully with her arms folded neatly across her chest. She looks older, her usual smooth countenance marred with lines of exhaustion. But her green eyes have lost none of their sharpness.

“I wanted to let you know that I’ve been in touch with an old friend on Arcturus who’s on the Alliance Medical Board. Your case is in the docket for their next meeting.”

“What do you mean?” he asks warily.

“I mean that the initial trial results of the bone weave therapy have exceeded expectations.”

“Yeah? What’s so special about it?”

“It’s an osteosynthetic tissue grown via nanofiber. They graft the tissue over the weakest points of your skeletal system. It’s not a cure,” she says quickly. “But patients in the clinical trials have reported a sixty to eighty percent improvement in bone density.”

“And what exactly would that mean?”

Her jaw quirks. “In theory? It would mean no more crutches.”

He refuses to let the sudden lump in his gut be hope.

“No promises,” she insists. “It is still experimental, and as you mentioned before approval for something of this nature can be hard to come by. But after recent events I figured I might be able leverage your…heroics a bit to our advantage.”

He smirks. “You mean you’re going to hold the fact that I saved ten thousand lives on the _Destiny Ascension_ over their heads until they scream ‘uncle’.”

“Yes, quite frankly,” she replies. Then pauses, hesitation clouding her features. “After our previous…conversation, I thought it best to keep you informed.”

A flush creeps down his neck. Right. _That_ little outburst.

“Thanks,” he says. “For everything.”

~

Joker’s escape pod is the last to be pulled in by the _Marakesh_. Liara’s face is the first he sees, and he doesn’t think he’ll forget her expression until the day he dies. His left arm is broken below his elbow. Not just fractured but _broken_ , a floppy sack of skin with a bone propped awkwardly in it. No one notices. They all ask about Shepard. He’s so dazed none of it feels real.

Chakwas notices.

She finds him in the middle of a chaotic mess of stunned survivors and steers him to a medbay that doesn’t look anything like the _Normandy’s_ , though it smells the same. Minus the lavender. She evicts the _Marakesh’s_ CMO and cordons off a space, immediately images his arm.

Her face is drawn and pale, she smells like scorched ozone and her usually pristine uniform is smudged with soot. But her hands are steady, and so is her voice.

“Are you all right?”

She’s the only one who’s asked.

Joker stares straight ahead. It still doesn’t feel real.

“Jeff,” she says, a little louder this time.

“Shepard…” Joker swallows, “was right there.”

~

The _Normandy_ survivors have been on the Citadel for nearly two weeks. With each day that passes without new orders, the dread in his stomach gets sharper and more persistent.  

At least he still sees Dr. Chakwas. She’s set herself up temporarily in Dr. Michel’s old clinic. But the last time he goes, he knows by the look on her face his dread is justified.

“I’ve been reassigned,” she says.

His heart sinks a little. Inevitable, he supposes. He hasn’t let himself think about the fact that when he gets his new orders it’s going to mean a new CMO.

“Where?” he asks.

“Mars,” she replies.

“ _Mars?_ I thought you preferred ships?”

“I do.”

“Didn’t you request a shipboard posting?”

“Yes.”

He falls silent, digesting this for a moment.

“They’re splitting everyone up,” she goes on. “Trying to keep us quiet. Jeff, do you understand? They’re burying Sovereign and everything that happened during the attack. With Shepard gone they think they can shut the rest of us up.”

“And what, ignore the reapers? _How_?”

“Like this,” she says, gesturing about them, then sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose with her fingers. “I’m going to make arrangements to transfer your medical records. Do you have your next assignment yet?”

“No,” he says. “But I’ll let you know.”

She nods, and he realizes he might not see her again.

“I’m not going to give up,” she informs him. It takes him a minute to realize she’s talking about the bone weave.

Well. He’s not holding his breath on that one. “Good luck, Doc.”

His expression doesn’t falter until he’s hobbled out the door.

~

The Alliance doesn’t reassign him.

A few more weeks go by before he gets the message his bone weave surgery has been denied.

~

From time to time he gets messages from her. Somehow she’s been able to keep track of him no matter how many times the Alliance shuffles him around, always an excuse, always a way to avoid answering why they haven’t given the best pilot in the fleet another ship.  

He doesn’t answer them.

For now he’s on Arcturus, supposedly awaiting the completion of a new frigate. He hasn’t bothered to learn the name of the ship, because he knows he’ll never fly it.

He’s between shifts of doing nothing, so he comes to watch the ships move in and out of the docking bays. Remembers how magic that sight used to be. Now it just reminds him of what’s been taken away.

He scowls at his omnitool, wondering if the mysterious sender of the message is actually going to show.  If nothing else, he’s curious how someone managed to bypass Alliance security protocols and get to his personal account. He half expects it to be Garrus, but no one has heard from Garrus in a few months.

 “Mr. Moreau?”

He turns a little too hastily, crutches threatening not to keep up. Swearing under his breath, he grips them a little tighter and wills his matchstick skeleton to hold together. When his balance is stable again he looks up to find a slender young woman with red hair and a too-bright smile on her face. He knows without needing to ask she’s a morning person. An insufferable one.

“You’ve got two minutes before I call the MPs,” he informs her.

Her green eyes widen, and Joker suppresses a smirk.         

“But I—”

“I’m willing to bet that Alliance uniform is borrowed and your ID is fake. So tell me what you want before I turn your ass in. And if you’re just a reporter looking for dirt on Shepard I’m going to be really disappointed.”

The unexpected amusement that passes across her face, like he’s somehow just given her the upper hand, takes him a little off guard.

“Very well, Mr. Moreau. You are correct. I’m not Alliance. But seeing as the Alliance doesn’t see fit to put your talents to good use, I have a proposition for you.”

“Who are you?” he demands. “And who are you with?”

“My name is Kelly Chambers. And the organization I’m with wants to get you back in the pilot’s chair.”

If she isn’t willing to say who she works for, it can’t be good news. But the notion of getting to fly again is too much for him to resist.

“Ok. I’ll bite. What the hell does your ‘organization’ want with me?”

She taps her fingers on a datapad she has clutched in her hand. “Because we have Shepard. He’s alive, Joker. We’re giving him a ship, and he needs a good pilot.”

His hands freeze on his crutches. He doesn’t even notice she’s used his nickname. “You lie,” he manages, voice coming out as a barely more than a whisper.

“No,” she replies. “But if you want proof you’ll have to see for yourself. As a token of good faith, I was asked to offer you this.” She hands him the datapad.

It’s an authorization for the bone weave procedure. His throat feels like sandpaper. “How do you know about this?”

“You aren’t the only person we’re recruiting.”

~

The entire shuttle ride to Minuteman Station Joker wonders what the hell he’s doing. He’s done some insane things in his life, most notably engaging a reaper head on, but this might top the list. Chambers is lying. Has to be. It’s all too fantastic to be true. Whatever they really want can’t possibly be noble or pleasant. This is goddamned Cerberus, the people who murder top Alliance generals out of convenience and sic thresher maws on Alliance soldiers just to see what’ll happen.

But if he’s being honest, he doesn’t care. When you have nothing left to lose, the seedy alternatives don’t seem so bad.

The moment he steps through the airlock though, there she is. Immaculate silver hair swept perfectly into place, not a crease to be found in her uniform – a uniform bearing Cerberus colors.

Christ. It’s all true.   

“Jeff,” she says, her broad smile lighting up those emerald eyes. “I told you I wouldn’t give up.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
